Observation and Bringing the Soil to LIFE! Guatemalan Permaculture Home Garden.

Discussion in 'Members' Systems' started by daozen, Mar 22, 2011.

  1. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    This is it, the beggining of a garden of eden? I think sizewise its about 1600m2. My dream? (thanks to Geoff Lawton's videos) To make this as close to a sanctuary/food forest, self sufficient and productive permacultural design. As many fruits, foods, herbs, medicinals and spiritual plants as possible and maybe even more! I want it to become as DENSE as possible! I love the concept of rampancy, in fact if it where up to me I'd let it go as far as nature would want once designed. Nature means Wisdom. Unfortunately my parents, who "rule" the house, are not the i-get-sustainability type so common of our times. Regardless, I'm starting with fixing the native Guatemalan hard brown clay soil around the edge of the back of the house where the biggest green area lies. Mulching shall be used, in rampant quantities! From there I shall quietly start closing and centering in with trees, shrubs and other types of plant power, until we conquer the natural retardness of shortcut lawns! Looking at the far future possibly integrating the functioning of the house with the garden/forest and sustainable energy cycle systems. Feedback is always welcomed! :) I love Permaculture!

    https://www.photoblog.com/daozen/2011/03/22/
     
  2. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    Good to see you using photoblog. Its really hlepful to see pictures since i have no idea what 1600m square is. This place looks a lot like Australia. It could be a sydney back yard that you've described. Or front yard for that matter.

    You will need more than mulch you will need lots and lots of manure. BEfore you start trying to grow anything, what about just covering the joint in mulch and manure and anything like that and encouraging it to all break down all over your garden. If that's too expensive, put mulch and get a lot of chickens and let them poo all over the place. If you want to plant anything while they are there, you might have to put little fences around the trees. Make sure this mixture is kept fairly moist so that it can break down fast.

    On the other hand, you could just do what Geoff Lawton does in his video about establishing a food forest.

    What sort of mulch can you access? It doesn't go far so you should look for cheap sources. Shops often have cardboard but on your place, i would think about maybe tearing it up a bit so it will break down into the soil quicker and not act as any sort of barrier between the worms and the other mulch materials.

    What's the latitude there? And elevation.
     
  3. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    Yes I have found many paralels with Australia! which hopefully makes advice from permaland very transferable. The city is full of casuarinas and eucalyptuses. Anyway, the elevation is 1500 mtrs. and the latitude is 14'36 North. We are just about done with the mild dry winter, waiting for the rainy mild summer. Temps very rarely go below 10C or above 30C, it's the most comfortable wather I know. Manure would be lovely but I'd have to find some first, I would have to sneak it in and hope the smell doesnt get the people inside, chikens are out of question aswell. They would not be welcomed. So you see I'm pretty much left to do it the organic matter way. Fortunately, theres lots of organic matter right infront of the house as you can see in the new pics I put up. I've started by diggin about 2 feet and filling it with organic matter and clay soil lasagna style. I'll put up some pics for better description. I'm then growing N fixers wich I see growing quite quickly, pics for that aswell.

    https://www.photoblog.com/daozen/2011/03/23/
     
  4. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    Sorry i can't see the organic matter you are referring to to put on your garden. Do you mean the leaf drop from the trees? or brown grass you will mow?

    If you were to cover the manure layer with vegetable matter, it would not smell much. Chicken poo could be smelly but not if covered with straw or other vegetable matter. But as you say you can't have chickens which is a shame. Could you not make a chicken shed out in that field where they can be safely housed at night while they run around in the day to forage. They shouldn't bother anyone over there.


    Yes you do have a wonderful climate. You'll be able to grow so many things. Put some fruit trees in in that big field you've got out there. But in their case, give them plenty of space. Just mulch well around the base and they should not need too much extra watering.
     
  5. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    mmm yeah, its pretty dry at the moment, what I do is either pick pine neddles or brown grass, I actually just came back from filling 6 largish bags with brown grass, my hands hurt from so much scrapping, but its all I can get for now, :( I'm sure with seeds and all it well become a weed but I hope to be able to control it either manually or through other plants. Chikens would be stolen in matter of seconds if left to roam around. Stealing is a guatemalan hobby. I'll get some pictures of the type of mulch I'm getting and see what you think, thanks for the advice :)
     
  6. Pink Angel

    Pink Angel Junior Member

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    Good luck with your project.
    Love seeing the photos, hopefully we will start to see some with growing veges.
    Pine needles are high in acidity so make sure they are mulched well :)
     
  7. Vezella22

    Vezella22 New Member

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    Thanks for replying, everyone. It appears we have a decent cross-section of people here and a lot of well thought-out discussion
     
  8. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    https://www.photoblog.com/daozen/2011/03/25/

    Well, the way I'm fixing my clay soil is I dig up about 2 feet and then do a layer of organic matter (grass or pine needles) and then one of the crumbled clay soil with light pebbles mix that comes out. I think it takes about 10 of these layers to use up all the soil that's dug out so that it feels like its getting enough oxygen in. Finally, I sow some legume seeds and cover with mulch.
     
  9. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    What legume are you going to use?
     
  10. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    I've used red, black and white beans, peas, and 2 legume trees Ive found to be native, or atleast grow quickly here, of which their identity I don't know... I chose them becuase they are legumes that I could easily obtain. ei cupboard
     
  11. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    Right so, this is how it looks as beans start germinating on more advanced parts of my project, a pic of the newest diggup which is done but is shown here as a mere hole, and a close up at the organic matter I'm using.

    https://www.photoblog.com/daozen/2011/03/28/
     
  12. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    More Pics! Here's the final result of another worked part, I used some spare volcanic sand we got from volcano pacaya last year, plants seem to love the seasoning on the soil. Here's also a pic of the beans and of the native brown legume I sowed and of another part of the garden which I hope to permaconquer eventually.

    https://www.photoblog.com/daozen/2011/03/30/
     
  13. Finchj

    Finchj Junior Member

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    What were your thoughts about water harvesting with the roof? Are those tiles or asphalt shingles? It doesn't appear that you all have a gutter system, which might be to your advantage (designing from the ground up that is).

    If your going to be in the house for a while, have you thought of using tap rooted crops to help break the soil instead of tilling by hand? I'm especially interested in your project since we both have clay soils (although much different climates) and are restricted from using chickens.

    Looks great, keep it up! Be careful with your back while digging in that clay!
    :y:
     
  14. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    Hi Funchj! so whats your site like, got a photoblog? or pics or something to share? ...here, well yeah, if it was up to me this house would have had solar panels and water harvesting systems long, long ago, unfortunately my parents are terified about the truth and seem to think the world is always going to be like it was when they were kids, don't know how long they can cling to those ideas tough. Anyway, they are ceramic tiles indeed, it would be great but I had not even tought about it. Yeah, well I'm eventually getting some daikon radish seeds too, but at the same time I have millions (well, hundreds) of seedling in cups and bags so I need an OK soil asap! my method seems to be working great, the soil is already looking darker its full of spiders (which I think is a good sign, they are probably eating little insects which means the food chain is starting somewhere inside the mounds, a put an aphid-infested basil on the mound and they are gone!) plus the mounds create different miniclimates which is great for supplying different drainage requirements. There is actually a part where I didnt dig, just mulched about 4-5 inches, we'll see how they compare, I doubt it gets through the clay, but hopefully I'm wrong. I just wish I could do the same on the lawn, its just sush an absolute waste! Sheet-mulch that shit out of existence and put some spiral mounds with some goodies in :). I'm putting up some more pics soon. cheers
     
  15. Finchj

    Finchj Junior Member

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    There is a link to my little blog about our garden's site in my signature! I'm transferring more photos to my computer right now :)

    I hear you about folks not recognizing that change needs to happen. Our house faces south and has an immense roof... if only my parent's would decide to get a loan for solar. Unfortunately our roof is made up of shingles which give off bad residues (and I've also heard about shingles incorporating a fungicide) so we will have to do some sort of sand filter if we wish to use our run off. I'm sure you'll figure something out for your site.

    I'm in the same boat as you: needing good soil ASAP! I won't be living here after this summer so I want to have a good annual garden this year and have the beds ready for the future forest garden. My parents wouldn't be able to do it on their own, and I think double digging will really pay off.

    I look forward to your pictures!
     
  16. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    No post to comment on? well, I'll just say that pond and those cannals are simply beatiful man, I'm sure they will spring plenty of life. You've got plenty of space and appear to be doing very well with those dug-out beds. I'm not sure you can create soil in less than six months tough, seems quite a stech but in any case, I was really stunned to not see much mulching going on!? I'm just a mulch fan. Any chance you can sheet-mulch before you leave? ala Bill Moll? anyway I wish the best to your garden, and plenty of energy. :)
     
  17. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Hi daozen,
    How are your beans doing?
    You must be well into your harvesting of them now.
     
  18. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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    Hey thanks for reminding me of this forum! I promise I will post some pics, maybe today. We are finally into the rainy season so there's not much work left to do other than watch it all grow. I'd love to keep building beds though. well, yeah it's all green and I began transplanting a bunch of seedlings of of herbs and other plants into the beds. On one side all the beans died and just left some pods, and I think it was thanks to some soapy air coming from some sort of vent from the house, I really need to look into it, there's also a soapy water leak into the garden, that reallly needs to get fixed! I'm not harvesting the beans though, I'm letting them self seed themselves, hopefully it works altough it doesnt seem to be enough, I think I'm going to sow some peas there, in case it was some fungus, peas seem to be more fungi resiliant, specially as we are into the rainy season. So hopefully some pics this afternoon!
     
  19. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Look forward to them.
    Im am absolutely hopeless when it comes to getting pics onto our photoblog so I tend to talk about the garden instead.
     
  20. daozen

    daozen Junior Member

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